


What we leave behind

by orphan_account, Prop_Logic



Series: #TogetherSaracens [3]
Category: Rugby RPF, Rugby Union RPF
Genre: Brotherhood, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Saracens Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:07:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26735647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prop_Logic/pseuds/Prop_Logic
Summary: After a harrowing defeat to Racing at the end of an equally harrowing season, Jamie George reflects on the era that may now be coming to an end at Saracens.(Does that sound like the lead of an article/interview? It does, doesn't it? It does. Oh, well.)
Relationships: Jamie George/Owen Farrell
Series: #TogetherSaracens [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1534616
Comments: 3
Kudos: 4





	What we leave behind

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that, uh... huh. That hurt. Do I mean today's match or Saturday's? I'll leave that up to you to decide. (Spoiler: I mean Saturday's. I'm still too numb to care much about today's loss, against Worcester or otherwise.) I actually wrote most of this on Saturday, mostly to get the sense of mourning out, and was planning to post it Saturday night, then I didn't finish it, and it has taken me a few more days to decide if I actually want to finish/post it.
> 
> Here we are, though, and hey - I'm not making this AO3 users-only! What do you know? Might even open some of my other works up again over the next week or two.

The moment Owen steps into the changing room, Jamie spots him. Very little has so much as registered on Jamie’s radar since the whistle blew – he has been running on autopilot through most of his usual post-match routine – but the door swings open, Mark steps in with Owen trailing on their coach’s heels, and Jamie’s eyes fly up at once.

The devastation Owen feels is clear to Jamie: in the tension of his jaw, held tighter than any simple frustration would warrant; in the flash of his eyes around the room, fixing for a moment on Brad, on Wiggy, on the team as a whole and the family that might never be quite the same again; in the rigidity of his shoulders as he exchanges a final few words with Mark. If this were an England game, or even any _ordinary_ loss for Saracens, Owen would be speaking to their teammates by now – cajoling, comforting, criticising. It would be _next job, next job_ , all about the lessons and the regathering of mentality.

Jamie is glad, as their gazes finally lock across the quiet changing room, that Owen has held off on that today. Everyone in this room is hurting – Jamie’s fingertips are numb, and his nose burns – and they need a moment to feel this loss before there will be any chance of letting it lie. For once, there is no _next job_ to move onto.

As Owen stops to talk with a few of the lads – quiet and solemn, heads bowed and sad smiles exchanged, arms patted or embraces held tight for long seconds – Jamie continues on with his post-match routine. On one side, Mako doesn’t yet seem to have regained use of his exhausted legs after dragging himself to the changing room; on the other, Vinny is engaged in tired mumblings of conversation with Maro. Across the room, El stands and stares at his shirt in silence where the fabric spills through his hands and drips down towards the bench, caught perpetually in the state of slipping through limp fingers.

Brad and Wiggy have clustered on either side of Goodey, Dunc slumped next to Brad as he stares off into the distance with red-rimmed eyes. The sight of Tim next to Mike throws Jamie off; he expected, for a moment, to see Kruiso there once more, but of course that won’t be the case anymore. Kruiso isn’t technically a part of the team, these days.

Somewhere in dragging himself into clean clothing and listening to the few things that the coaches and a few of the lads have to say at the moment – no one wants to overwhelm the team, so soon after _that_ – Jamie loses track of Owen and the rest of their teammates. It hurts, honestly, to look at some of them, knowing that this could well be the last meaningful game he ever plays with the likes of Brad, whom Jamie has known for his entire senior career, and that they have yet to be given any definitive answer on when the next meaningful game for the team as a whole will come. They will see out the Premiership, take their relegation, and then… what?

Hang about in limbo as the club struggles to stay afloat for a year?

Now is probably not the time to be thinking so far ahead, Jamie reminds himself; there is enough to contend with in this loss without worrying about the future.

Owen reappears then, as Jamie finishes dressing, and drops down onto the bench at Jamie’s side, hands in pockets, to wait in silence while Jamie pulls his trainers on and ties up the laces. When Jamie fumbles the bow a second time, Owen turns his head away to start packing up Jamie’s kit, shuffling closer to reach the socks on Jamie’s other side when he leans around Jamie’s back and pressing his warmth against Jamie as he does so.

Jamie closes his eyes, draws in a deep breath, and ties his laces off properly. After another moment to compose himself, Owen’s arm now settled comfortably around him, he holds out his hand expectantly until his wedding ring is retrieved from the safety of Owen’s pocket and dropped into his palm.

“Tough game,” Owen mutters finally as Jamie slips the simple band of metal on.

“Yeah,” Jamie agrees, well aware that his is not the only pair of eyes fixed on the ring. “Tough game.”

Owen blows out a slow breath and squeezes his arm a little tighter; Jamie allows the pull to guide him into Owen’s side, trusting that his husband can hold them both up for a little while. It hasn’t just been a tough game; it has been a tough month, a tough season, and _tough_ isn’t the problem.

The problem is that they threw everything they could into overcoming it, through every single setback, and now they have finally been overrun. There is nothing more to do to fight back. There are no more battles to win, and the one they lost today was their last. This is the note on which they will end the season, no matter the result of their last few games in the Premiership.

 _This_ was what mattered.

“We could’ve done it,” he tells Owen – would have told the entire team, if he could raise his voice high enough for it, because one of the beautiful things about this group is that no one shies away from honesty. “We _should_ ’ve done it.”

Owen’s head jerks in a stiff nod against Jamie’s.

“Everyone gave everything,” come the hoarse words, then Owen pauses as if to consider his approach. “ _You_ gave everything. And I’m proud of you, yeah?”

Nose stinging again, Jamie sniffs and reaches out to tangle his fingers with Owen’s, squeezing gently. Together, they watch their team in silence, soaking in the quiet sense of loss and uncertainty, the dying strains of the family they have grown up into together. They will rebuild, of course, and they will throw everything into this team for as long as Saracens will have them, but for now, at least, it seems impossible to shake the feeling that this is an era coming to a close.

Slowly, Jamie’s eyes drift over the room, mapping out each and every face. His gaze falls on Baz – there will be no celebratory remix this year – then flicks up to Goodey – perhaps some of Alex’s pre-match music would be better suited to the current mood – and then he catches sight of Dom Morris and Manu Vunipola, standing together and talking in quiet tones. There is the young wave of fresh talent and dedication that Jamie has seen coming through over the last few years, and the prospect of where they will go, years after Owen and Jamie are too old to give what Saracens deserves, is an exciting one.

If nothing else, it is enough to twitch his lips faintly up for a beat.

“Right,” Owen sighs finally, making to stand but not pushing away from the bench until Jamie is no longer leaning on him. “Time to get going soon, I reckon.”

Jamie glances up at him, then around at the changing room.

“Yeah,” he acknowledges, taking the hand Owen offers him and allowing himself to be pulled upright. “Long trip home and all…”

He reaches for his bag, but Owen gets there first, shouldering it wordlessly and shrugging under Jamie’s questioning stare.

“Just being useful,” he dismisses under his breath; the volume of the words does not do justice to the weight they carry, and Jamie is hard-pressed not to wince.

“You’ve been useful all week,” he points out, “Today included.”

Owen looks down at the bag strap now settled over his shoulder and shrugs again, looking distinctly uncomfortable to have been caught out.

“Well, I didn’t play eighty minutes in the front-row,” he counters easily enough, raising a challenging eyebrow when he lifts his gaze to Jamie’s once more. “You look dead on your feet.”

Jamie has to give him that.

Interviews are far easier than they would have been immediately after the game, now that Jamie has changed into fresh clothing and has had a chance to simply _breathe_. Owen hovers a respectable few metres away the whole time, mask fixed over his face as he treads the fine line between staying out of the cameras’ sight and in Jamie’s, for which Jamie himself, in the midst of offering a few genuine opinions about the situation, is grateful.

If, after the interview, Owen has any thoughts on their differences in approach to media – Jamie is fully aware that Owen would _never_ have been so honest about his thoughts, master of shutting down questions that he is – then none of them are voiced. Instead, they walk in silence while Jamie takes another moment to compose himself.

This is not the end of the season, no matter how much it might feel like it. They have a week left to send off Brad, Wiggy, Andy…

Jaw clenching, he searches out Owen’s hand to grip and squeeze in silence, uncaring of the cameras behind them; no one will be watching them, when the Racing players are starting to emerge. Owen flicks a glance in his direction, but there is no protest or question, and the hand Jamie is clinging to stays right where it is.

When Jacko falls into step beside them, Jamie claps him wordlessly on the shoulder even as some of the tension left over from time spent on the end of a microphone bleeds away. Kruiso may have been the most recent to leave behind their little playing group that came through the academy together – and of his own free will, as much as Jamie won’t begrudge George that – but at least the three of them are still here.

“If I sleep on the way back, do I have to wake up in the next day?” Jacko grumbles, to a small snort from Owen.

“Only if someone can wake you up,” Jamie points out, quite reasonably in his opinion, “But I wouldn’t envy you the neck pain afterwards.”

Jacko glances over at their bus and sighs in defeat.

“One day, someone will invent a bus seat that doesn’t torture you when you’re at your lowest…”

“Try the year after you’ve retired,” Owen offers.

Jacko huffs out a laugh, which melts into a pained groan as soon as he starts to climb the steps of the bus. Watching, Jamie briefly considers teasing him, but ultimately decides against it; he’ll be in the same position in a few moments, after all. If Owen follows him closely to provide support rather than to get out of the cold, then no one needs to know, but Jamie is quietly grateful that he doesn’t have to drag himself up the steps alone.

On the bus, Jamie wanders down the aisle to drop into the window seat of a free pair, nodding tiredly to Elliot on the way, and waits for Owen – who has stopped to talk to Manu for a few minutes – to join him. By the time Owen does drop down into the seat left for him, Jamie is genuinely considering trying for a nap on the way to the airport, regardless of what he said to Jackson. He’ll feel like shit if he tries it, but that won’t exactly be any different to how he feels now.

“Man U won,” Owen volunteers as he sits, to Jamie’s amusement.

“Yeah?” he asks. “What was the score?”

“Don’t know,” Owen admits freely. “I just saw they won and left it at that.”

If Jamie had the energy, he’d laugh at that. As it is, he finds himself more concerned with keeping himself together for the long hours until they get home. Owen, of course, knows well enough where his head is at, merely reaching over to squeeze his thigh in gentle reassurance.

“Want me to cook something quick when we get home?” comes the quiet offer.

Jamie mulls the idea over, then pulls a face.

“Maybe something you can just bang in the oven for a while?” he requests. “I don’t know… We got what we need for chicken pie?”

Owen twists his lips, thinking it through.

“Probably,” the younger man settles on. “Yeah, I’ll do that. We’ve got some chicken in the freezer from a few weeks back, don’t we?”

Now that Owen mentions it, Jamie is pretty sure that his husband is right. Satisfied, he nods and drops his head back against the seat to close his eyes and blow out a slow breath.

“While it’s in the oven, let’s just sit on the couch and watch some sport, yeah?” he suggests. “There’s got to be something on somewhere in the world.”

“You want to cuddle,” Owen fills in easily. “Yeah, we can do that.”

Now, this is why Jamie loves the man sitting beside him.

“You know me so well,” he sighs, scrubbing at his eyes.

“I’ve known you over half our lives,” Owen returns, amused. “I’d like to think so.”

 _Over half our lives_.

…Huh. Most of that time spent at Saracens, too, in the academy with Jacko, who’s sitting metres away from them, Will, who’s been retired four years, and Kruiso, who’s off to Japan and possibly – probably – leaving Saracens for good in the process. Then there’s Brad, Wiggy, Goodey’s heading off for a year, Ben Spencer’s already gone and is carving it up at Bath…

“Sarries is going to be so fucking weird with so many lads gone,” Jamie mutters, his husband humming in soft agreement.

“It won’t be the same,” Owen acknowledges, quiet and solemn.

It goes unspoken that the new challenge is one that they are both looking forward to. They have time to plan and prepare – as much as the current uncertainty will allow – once the season is over and they’ve seen their leaving players off. For now, Jamie is glad that they are on the same page in taking a moment for sombre reflection.

There is no denying that this will be the end of an era, and a lot of the family that has been at the very heart of Saracens for a large part of Jamie’s time with the club so far are heading off for either a year or forever. It is not quite the mass exodus of Black Monday, and certainly Jamie does not think that anyone is looking for a major culture shift in its wake, but the fact remains that many good players – good teammates, good friends – are leaving, and a fair few not on the terms anyone would have wanted.

Jamie cares for all of these men, whom he has worked so hard for and with and who have given the same to him. It hurts to know that they will all be ending this season on a note like this, and it hurts even more to know that this is the send-off they will be giving Brad and Wiggy in particular; their Terminator of a captain, beyond any other player, deserves more.

Unfortunately, as inadequate as the word feels, they have lost their chance of offering anything better.

**Author's Note:**

> By the way, I sometimes wonder if I write a bit too much like I'm expecting readers to be Sarries fans/know the up-and-coming players and history of the club, etc. I think I've actually explained a few things in-piece with this one, but...  
> Even things like the Academy graduates of '08 - do people know that? If I talk about The Night of the Long Knives/Black Monday, does that mean anything? Mako joining around 2010/11, Billy a year or two later; Owen and Jamie meeting 13/14 and - at least according to Jamie - being best mates; even in another fic in this series, I mentioned Steve Borthwick and Eddie knowing Owen when he was 17... Does that actually make sense, or should I try and tone that down/at least explain a bit more? I mean, I've never really thought to explain why I think of Jamie/Owen as such an obvious pairing. 
> 
> Anyway, I'd just appreciate thoughts on that. Otherwise, I hope everyone is well!


End file.
